Connecticut Community Foundation Names Paula Van Ness New CEO

Seasoned leader will bring national nonprofit experience to historic organization

WATERBURY, CT – January 4, 2012 – The Board of Trustees of the Connecticut Community Foundation have chosen Paula Van Ness, former COO of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation in New York, and former president and CEO of the Starlight Children’s Foundation and Make-A-Wish Foundation of America, as CEO of Connecticut’s oldest community foundation. Van Ness takes over the reins from retiring CEO Ingrid Manning, as of February 1, 2012.

Choice follows national search
“Paula was our choice following a rigorous national search for a CEO, as befits our continuing vision for the Connecticut Community Foundation. We are excited she will be joining us,” said Foundation Board President Richard E. Lau, DVM.

“Under Ingrid’s direction for nearly 30 years, the foundation moved from operating solely as a responsive grant maker to taking leadership positions in the community to improve early education, the environment, heart and cancer care, services for seniors, women and their children, and nonprofit management in our region,” said Lau.

“We look forward to expanding our leadership work. Among other exciting possibilities, we can make an impact on more regional issues by partnering with other community foundations on projects in our area. We expect Paula will bring us new ideas and new approaches.”

Excited to lead a community foundation
“As far as I’m concerned, community foundations are the most community- based of all philanthropic institutions and represent the most exciting and dynamic dimension of philanthropy today ,” Van Ness commented. “I am privileged to join an organization with a strong base that is ready to take its next steps into the future.

"I see a future in which the foundation assimilates the hopes and expectations of the foundation’s major partners, including both the region’s charitable individuals and the nonprofits."

Van Ness jokes that it is not the weather that motivates her to move from sunny Tucson, Arizona to run the $70 million community foundation that serves 21 towns in Greater Waterbury, Cheshire and the Litchfield Hills.

Rather, she said, “While I was interviewing, I met incredibly committed group of people who really care about improving the quality of life in their communities.”

Van Ness said she is committed to spending her first two months to getting advice from people in the community foundation’s 21-town region.

“I’ll be listening – not talking – to community leaders, elected officials, generous families, smart nonprofits, my fellow community foundation heads. I can’t wait to hear what they have to teach me,” she concluded.

About Paula Van Ness
Van Ness is a seasoned nonprofit executive with four decades of leadership experience in a wide variety of organizations. Her skill set includes strategic planning, organization development, resource development, marketing/branding, and human resources. She has worked for start-ups, turnarounds, and mature organizations, primarily on a national basis.

Most recently, she was the Chief Operating Officer of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation based in New York City. The foundation focuses on raising awareness and accelerating action in connection with America's growing fiscal challenges.

From 2004 until July 2010, she served as the national President and CEO of the Starlight Children’s Foundation and before that she was the President and CEO of the Make-A-Wish Foundation of America for six years. Previously, she held the position of CEO of the National Alliance to End Homelessness and was founding president of the National AIDS Fund. Additionally, she headed up the National AIDS Information and Education program for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, AIDS Project Los Angeles, and Family Planning Centers of Greater Los Angeles.

Van Ness has served on the boards of directors and as an officer of Independent Sector, KaBOOM! and several other national nonprofit organizations. Currently, she serves on the boards of Gift of Adoption Fund and Comeback America Initiative.

Educated at the University of Arizona where she earned a BS in Child Development and the University of San Francisco where she completed a master’s program in Organization Development, she is a certified Grant Professional and a graduate of a leadership development program at the Center for Creative Leadership.

 


For more information, call 203-753-1315.